No good options on nuclear waste: Editorial

Suzanne D'Ambrosio, communications manager at Oyster Creek Generating Station, talks about the plans for the decommission of the nuclear power plant at Oyster Creek Training Center in Forked River. Staff video Tanya Breen

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This 2002 file photo shows a group of Japanese scientists examining a fault that had been discovered in the wall of one of the exploratory tunnels carved out of the interior of Yucca Mountain.(Photo: Marilyn Newton / Gannett)Buy Photo

New Jersey Congressman Leonard Lance fired off a press release Thursday trumpeting his role in breathing new life into plans to establish a national depository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

In a 340-72 vote, the House passed a bill, co-sponsored by Lance, that would have the Department of Energy resume the planning for and construction of Yucca Mountain while allowing the DOE to build or license temporary sites in Texas and New Mexico to store waste while the Yucca project was being completed.

The matter of how to dispose of radioactive waste has particular relevance in New Jersey, where the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor in Lacey is scheduled to permanently cease operations in October. A decommissioning report from plant operator Exelon is expected to be released later this month. It will provide details on how and when the highly radioactive spent fuel rods will be removed from the elevated fuel pool and stored, and a timetable for the completion of the decommissioning process.

Transporting the spent fuel off site to a depository out west would add a new dimension to the decommissioning, not only as it directly relates to Oyster Creek, but to the parts of the state that have been identified as transport routes. That extra dimension would rekindle vocal opposition from state and national environmental groups.

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The Oyster Creek nuclear generating station in Lacey is scheduled to permanently close in October.(Photo: File photo)

One thing is clear: There are no good solutions for disposing of commercial-grade nuclear waste. About 80,000 metric tons of spent fuel have accumulated at nuclear reactor sites in 39 states. The question is which is the best of the bad alternatives for dealing with the highly radioactive waste: storing it onsite in cement and steel-reinforced dry casks or transporting spent fuel from the 39 states by train, truck and barge?

Environmental groups argue that transporting nuclear waste to a national depository dramatically increases the risk of a disastrous nuclear accident or terrorist attack. They have branded that approach as a “game of radioactive Russian roulette," variously calling the modes of nuclear waste transport "mobile Chernobyls," "floating Fukushimas," "dirty bombs on wheels" and "mobile X-ray machines that can't be turned off."

To date, there is no companion bill in the Senate to the one touted by Lance. And there may not be anytime soon. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, reportedly plans to introduce a bill that would emphasize finding potential interim sites rather than focusing on Yucca Mountain. Should that bill, or the one advanced in the House, be approved in the Senate, President Donald Trump would likely sign it into law.

The Trump administration has asked Congress for $120 million in initial funding to revive Yucca Mountain and Energy Secretary Rick Perry has said the government has a “moral obligation” to find a solution. But the matter would be tied up in the courts for years, if not decades. And it has already been three decades since Yucca Mountain was first identified as the only viable long-term depository. But that viability has been repeatedly challenged, with even the Energy Department arguing against it.

For Oyster Creek, the immediate concern should be moving the spent fuel rods out of the plant's elevated fuel pool as quickly as possible, employing European-style dry casks, which provide better security against terrorism and degradation than the ones typically used in the U.S. New Jersey officials should advocate aggressively for the casks commonly used in Europe.

“I want the 3,000 metric tons of nuclear waste out of New Jersey and consolidated at a national, permanent facility,” Lance said after the House vote. “For far too long the federal government has failed to meet its obligation to dispose of used fuel that resides at nuclear plants across 39 states. It is time we resolve the nuclear waste storage problem that has been unresolved for thirty years.”

We agree. But playing radioactive Russian roulette isn’t the best of the bad alternatives.